Tag: work

Adventures in (fake) Baby Sitting

Posted on by Decade Dream Journal

I need to leave the house in a hurry: I signed up for some classes and I’m late, but I keep forgetting something and having to come back. At one point I realize I even forgot my underwear, and there’s even a pretty girl laughing at me. My building is a maze (that’s another recurring dream of mine) and I can’t find my way back.

Eventually I’m ready and running through my town; the streets are more colorful somehow, people are wearing summer clothes and palm trees are greener, I feel like I’m in California. There’s a giant papier-maché head peeking out from a roof, it’s bright pink and I want to take a picture of it. But I’m late! And what’s worse, I suddenly remember I need to go to work, so I have no choice but text an excuse to my classes’ group chat. They all rage against my job, they say my boss is overworking me and paying too little.

Turns out I’m a baby sitter, my charge is a little boy named Marcus, son of a rich, somewhat bossy couple. I show his mother a painting on my notebook, tell her Marcus made it. She’s skeptical though, so I have to admit it’s actually by my friend F. But Marcus helped!

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Lost Jackets, Lost Shoes

Posted on by Decade Dream Journal

I’m a soldier sitting at a table in my own IRL living room. A fellow soldier is sitting next to me. We are searching through a pile of jackets belonging to prisoners, one by one we rip the seams with a pocket knife, searching for hidden money or keys.

There is a journalist hiding in the room, taking pictures with his phone. We grab him, try to force him to release the phone, but he says the public has the right to know what we’re doing! We have to call one of our special agents, a skinny guy with glasses and a lab coat on. He smiles gleefully in a disturbing sort of way, gives the journalist a drug. I shake the scientist’s hand, it gets covered in spit. His mouth is full of spit too, he reminds me of a boy I was forced to sit next to in middle school.

I go to my usual salon and look around for F., the man that always cuts my hair. I notice stairs that weren’t there before and go up to the second floor: F. is on the balcony smoking, a balcony that looks almost like mine. I tell him about my new job and how I urgently need a haircut, he’s very happy for me and tells me to go fix an appointment.

( Photo by Guilherme Petri on Unsplash )

Downstairs next to the register are standing Naya Rivera and Heather Morris. They look older than what I remembered, Naya is wearing a baseball cap and stinks of alcohol. They greet me because we went to school together, ask how my cat is doing. Hearing this, my sister walks up to show us the cat inside her tote bag, it’s a white and brown kitten that looks very unhappy. I get mad at my sister, how can she just walk around with a poor kitten like that! She ignores me and skips the line, so she can pay for the roasted potatoes she apparently bought at the salon.

I suddenly realize I’m not wearing my shoes and I don’t remember taking them off. The place is now filled with hundreds of people. I try to look outside in the yard, but I’m chased away by the Golden Girls. Inside a child is arranging hundreds of shoes in a long train on the floor, I pick them one by one but can’t find mine. Then a thought occurs to me: I’m wearing no shoes because I’m in actually in bed! And I wake up.

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Little Little Women

Posted on by Decade Dream Journal

A recurring dream: I’m at school, usually high school, and still have to graduate. It’s been years and I’m stuck here, failing my finals every time and having to go back. Often I’m sitting in my old philosophy teacher’s class, but in my dreams he teaches something even more horrid, like math or biology. I’m always unprepared, always didn’t study, always have skipped classes and don’t know how to catch up. Today’s dream is no different, I’m sitting at my desk but I don’t even know where on the textbook we’re at, I’m hoping and praying that the teacher won’t ask me questions. Suddenly a thought occurs to me: I’m starting my new job soon!* How can I go to school if I’m supposed to be at work every morning? Does this mean…? Dare I hope? I run to my mom and ask her if I’m allowed to quit school, at long last.

Another dream: I’m sitting in a little Victorian living room, I am Jo March from Little Women. I’m entertaining guests with my sisters, there’s two gentlemen for now but we’re waiting for a friend of Meg’s to come by, we’re told she’s a very sweet young lady. She arrives just as Beth is sitting at the piano singing an Ave Maria with her beautiful soprano voice. I think to myself it’s pretty cinematic and we’re gonna make a great impression. The guest enters the room and Amy –as played by a young Kirsten Dust– does a little double take and exclaims, “And who are you supposed to be?!” It’s very funny and endearing.

We all go out to the yard where the gentlemen strike a conversation with Netflix’s Lucifer. The two are gushing about something awful, like slave trade. Lucifer punishes us all by shrinking down the whole party to half our size. Baffled, Amy picks up a red leaf from the ground, it’s bigger than her hand now.

(Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash )

Meg and I leave to find a cure, accompanied by our butler, who’s a posh Brit with a white mustache. We are so small the three of us look like children walking down the street. We reach my IRL neighborhood and sneak in the local kindergarten, the rooms inside are covered wall to wall and floor to ceiling with blue porcelain tiles. We leave from the window, and there’s a cackle of hyenas waiting for us outside! We grab our batons and flame throwers and get ready for the fight.

*I am starting a new job on Thursday.

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